BIRTHDAYS

1924 Boyd Bennett
(Rockabilly) vocals/bass
b. Muscle Shoals, AL, USA.
WEB-SITE:
www.boydbennett.com/
MORE:
www.rockabillyhall.com/BoydBennett1.html

1908
Thomas Hoyt "Slim" Bryant
C&W singer-songwriter
b. Atlanta, GA, USA.
BIO:
www.oldtimeherald.org/archive...ant.html

1913 "Blind" John Davis, piano
b. Hattiesburg, MI, USA
d. October 12, 1985, Chicago, IL, USA.
It is interesting to note that in the 1970's, John, a very good person. spent much of his time and money looking after another Bluesman 'Tampa Red', who was then living in the 'Sacred Heart Nursing Home', in Chicago, IL.
The piano work of John Davis was featured on blues records by the score during the '30s and '40s. His accompaniments to Tampa Red, Sonny Boy Williamson, Big Bill Broonzy, and others brought him fame as a blues musician, but like his piano compatriot Little Brother Montgomery, Davis did not care to be typecast as such and often expressed a preference for the sweet, sentimental favorites he played in countless piano lounges. But as with Montgomery, most of Davis's own recording opportunities came from blues companies, and he never failed to acquit himself well when it came to blues and boogie-woogie. He was the first pianist to do a European blues tour (with Broonzy in 1952), returning to the continent frequently as a solo act during the '70s and '80s. With blues-piano appreciation in Europe being what it is and has been, it's not surprising that most of the albums of Blind John Davis were recorded there and not in Chicago, his home from the age of two until his death.
~ Jim O'Neal
MORE:
www.cascadeblues.org/History...avis.htm

1909 Teddy Hill, Tenor Sax/Leader
b. Birmingham, AL, USA. d. 1978.
He is now best recalled as tbe operator of Harlem's (New York) Minton Playhouse (The Home of 'Bop'). 1929-31 with Luis Russell band. In 1934, his own band frequently played the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem (NY). Personel included Dickie Wells, Bill Coleman, Roy Eldridge and Chu Berry. Toured England and France in 1937.
Biography
Though he led a successful big band throughout the 1930s, Teddy Hill is best-remembered for managing Minton's Playhouse in Harlem, a nightclub where experimental jam sessions eventually led to the birth of the lingua franca of jazz: bebop. Prior to that, his musical career began after moving to New York in 1927, where he joined George Howe's band (which become Luis Russell's within months), staying until 1931. He started his own band in 1934, attracting such sidemen as Roy Eldridge, Chu Berry, Dicky Wells, Bill Coleman, and Dizzy Gillespie (who recorded his first solos while with Hill). The band played at the Savoy Ballroom regularly and toured England and France in the summer of 1937, but by 1940, Hill had left the band business in order to manage Minton's. There, such players as Gillespie, Berry, Charlie Christian, Jimmy Blanton, Thelonious Monk, and Kenny Clarke jammed after their regular gigs until past the wee hours, working out advanced harmonic innovations. (Indeed, one of the jams recorded by fan Jerry Newman was given the title "Up on Teddy's Hill.") Minton's importance waned after World War II, though, and when it discontinued its music policy in 1969, Hill became manager of the Baron Lounge.
~ Richard S. Ginell

1902 Cecil Irwin
Tenor Sax/clarinet/arranger
b. Evanston, IL, USA, d. May 3, 1935
Biography
A big band arranger and reed player who is mostly known for his membership in several of the great Earl Hines bands of the '20s and '30s, Cecil Irwin unfortunately got a spot in the section of the musical graveyard devoted to those who perished on the road. A traffic accident that occurred outside of Des Moines, IA, while he was on tour claimed his life, cutting short a career that was loaded with promise.

Following gigs with the bands of Carroll Dickerson, Erskine Tate, and Junie Cobb, Irwin joined Hines in 1928 as a tenor saxophonist and arranger. He has credits on more than a dozen different releases by the pianist and bandleader in which his work in both capacities is on display. He also did some freelancing out of the Hines band, showing up on sessions by New Orleans clarinetist Johnny Dodds and trumpeters Jabbo Smith and King Oliver. He can also be heard on a jazz violin anthology, featuring Stephane Grappelli and Joe Venuti, on the EPM label.
~ Eugene Chadbourne

1906 George James, Tenor Sax
b. Beggs, OK, USA, d. Jan. 30, 1995
Age 88
Biography
Hailing from what sounds like an Oklahoma town full of panhandlers, this artist spent more than half a century on the jazz scene, playing on more than 60 records by the time he retired in the early '80s. George James was just as likely to play under the orchestra on bass saxophone as he was to soar out over the top on soprano saxophone, clarinet, or flute. He also played all the reeds in between, seeming to be almost constantly employed in a series of bands that began in the late '20s with Charlie Creath's Number Two Band and Johnny Neal's Syncopaters and eventually included collaborations with stars such as Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller.

James really didn't stay that long out West, attending high school in St. Louis and moving to Chicago in 1928. In the Windy City he worked with a variety of bandleaders, such as Jimmie Noone, Sammy Stewart, Ida Marples, and Bert Hall. He also began leading his own group. In the early '30s he was closely associated with Noone for several years until he began touring with Louis Armstrong near the close of 1931. When one of the tours ended in New York, James stayed on there and tried his luck in groups such as the Savoy Bearcats and Charlie Turner's Arcadians. Fortune smiled on the latter musical situation: Fats Waller took over, turned it into his own orchestra, and kept James busy through 1937.

The reed maestro flew with the Blackbirds Revue until the close of the '30s, then was associated with such masters of syncopation as James P. Johnson, Benny Carter, Teddy Wilson, and Lucky Millinder. James revived his own group in 1943, grabbing the house band gig at a pair of popular nightclubs. He was back with Johnson in 1944 but continued activities as a bandleader in several different locales, including Pittsburgh and Detroit. By the mid-'40s James had become a part of an orchestra led by the fine pianist Claude Hopkins, followed by several years with a similar ensemble helmed by Noble Sissle. For the last decades of his career, James continued the combination of his own group and sideman affiliations. In the '70s he undertook some of his most extensive international touring as a member of Clyde Bernhardt's band.
~ Eugene Chadbourne

1905 Mager Johnson, guitar
b. Crystal Springs, MS, USA.
Played with Clyde Bernhardt.

1910
Morry R. Kaplan
label owner (Danceland)
b. Chicago, IL, USA

1917 Billy Moore, Arranger/Piano
b. Parkersburg, WV, USA. d. ??1989.
Billy is recalled not so much for his piano playing but rather as one of the better Big Band arrangers. Moore began his career writing for the great Jimmy Lunceford orchestra where he replaced Sy Oliver, who had left Lunceford to write for Tommy Dorsey. He was soon also writing for other bands including the Charlie Barnet, and Jan Savitt orchestras. In the late 1940s, Moore became a music publisher. In the early 1950s, Moore relocated to Europe where he wrote music for various French groups. From 1953-60, he worked as musical director and pianist for both 'The Peters Sisters', and the 'Delta Rhythm Boys' vocal groups then touring Europe. Subsequently, Moore found work as a staff arranger for a Berlin radio station. In the 1970s, he was working in Copenhagen, Denmark as a freelance arranger.
Biography
Although he often worked as a pianist, Billy Moore is best known for being a talented swing-based arranger. He started out his career near the top, replacing Sy Oliver (when Oliver joined Tommy Dorsey) as the chief writer with Jimmie Lunceford's Orchestra. Moore was not exclusive to Lunceford for long and he later wrote for Charlie Barnet, Jan Savitt and Tommy Dorsey. He became a music publisher in the late 1940s and soon was moving away from jazz. Moore relocated to Europe in the early 1950s where he wrote music for French groups. He was the musical director and pianist for a pop vocal group (the Peters Sisters) from 1953-60. Later on Moore was the staff arranger for a Berlin radio station and worked with the Delta Rhythm Boys in Europe. He settled in Copenhagen in the 1970s where he continued working as a freelance arranger. Oddly enough for a writer, Moore never led any record dates of his own.
~ Scott Yanow

1911 Louis Prima
Leader/Trumpet/Vocal
b. New Orleans, LA, USA.
d. Aug., 24, 1978, New Orleans, LA, USA.
Died after being in Coma for several years.
Space Age Pop Bio:
www.spaceagepop.com/prima.htm
WIKI BIO:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Prima
MORE:
www.geocities.com/NapaValle...mlouie.htm
MORE:www.geocities.com/NapaValle...mlouie.htm
1910 Edmundo Ros, Leader
b. Caracas, Venezuela
Web-Site:
www.edmundoros.com/
Space Age Pop Bio:
www.spaceagepop.com/ros.htm
MORE:
www.louisprima.com/

1901 Irene Scruggs
vocals, b. MS, USA
**(SOME SOURCES GIVE BIRTH DATE AS DECEMBER 31ST)
Biography
Blues singer Irene Scruggs was born somewhere in rural Mississippi, but blues anthropologists believe that she came up the river early on her life and was reportedly raised in St. Louis. That bustling town claims her as one of her own, and her career was certainly marked by the type of versatility and generous creativity that St. Louis is known for. Like Chuck Berry would decades later, Scruggs was part of a process wherein traditional rural musical roots blended into newly evolving urban styles. Like two cooks working out of the same spice cabinet, both artists wind up stirring country blues and swing jazz together. The great jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams recalls that Scruggs was already an established force on the St. Louis blues scene the first time Williams went there as a young member of a vaudeville revue. Furthermore, that revue felt it had to hire Scruggs, whose success in vaudeville apparently overshadowed her recording and nightclub career at times. "In St. Louis, our show picked up a young blues singer named Irene Scruggs," Williams said in an interview. "Irene had not long settled in St. Louis, and was starting out to become one of St. Louis' finest singers." This apparently gave Scruggs the cache to get the treasured opportunity to collaborate with several of the bands King Oliver brought to St. Louis in the mid-'20s. Fans of classic jazz should enjoy all the nice playing of her voice off against superb instrumental talent such as clarinetist Albert Nicholas, trombonist Kid Ory, and of course Oliver himself on cornet. She was also well-suited for recording with the fascinating Blind Blake, whose impressive efforts as an accompanist to various singers are collected on the Wolf set The Accompanist: 1926-1931. Women who don't approve of their boyfriends playing the blues will develop a fondness for Scruggs' song "Itching Heel," that much is certain. In live shows, it was the setting for lively theatrical business between the singer and Blake, the blind guitarist responding to criticisms of his personality with wild blues licks. "He don't do nothing but play on his old guitar," Scruggs sings, "While I'm busting suds out in the white folks' yard."

Scruggs' earliest recordings were with pianist and bandleader Clarence Williams for Okeh in 1924. She began working with Oliver two years later, and cut a series of sides with the fine bluesman Lonnie Johnson in 1927, again for Okeh. She continued using St. Louis as her base when she formed her own band in the late '20s, gigging regularly at blues and jazz clubs. She recorded with Blake under the name of Chocolate Brown, and also used the alternative blues name of Dixie Nolan for several contract-breaking ventures. In the early '30s, she toured and recorded with Little Brother Montgomery, often stealing the shows with her guest spots. Raunchy, sexy blues became one of her specialties, and this was not a subject she needed time getting used to, since it was one of the major concerns of every female blues recording artist from the pre-war era. "Good Grindin'" and "Must Get Mine in Front" were just two example of the explicit sexual enthusiasm contained in her recordings, and it was no surprise that her material was included in The Nasty Blues, a collection of bawdy blues material and biographies published by Hal Leonard. By the '40s, Scruggs had joined the population of expatriate black performers living abroad, residing first in Paris with her daughter, the dancer Baby Leazar Scruggs. Later she moved to Germany, where she is thought to have died. In the '50s, she did several radio broadcasts for the British BBC.
~ Eugene Chadbourne

1928 Rosemary Squires, vocals
b. Bristol, Avon, England, UK.
né: Joan Rosemary Yarrow.
BIO:
www.meridian-records.co.uk/arti...s.htm

1901 Jack Taylor, guitar
b. Summershade, KY, USA
d. August 4, 1962, USA.
Member: "The Prarie Ramblers" (originally called The Kentucky Ramblers, but changed their name when they began to back Western singer Patsy Montana). The group originally consisted of Charles "Chick" Hurt (Mandolin, Mandola, Tenor Banjo, b. May 11, 1901, d. October 9, 1967), Jack Taylor (guitar, b. December 7, 1901, d. August 4, 1962), Shelby David "Tex" Atchison (Fiddle, Vocals, b. February 5, 1912, d. August 4, 1892) and Floyd "Salty" Holmes (Guitar, Harmonica, Jug, b. March 6, 1909, d. January 1, 1970). Subsequently, other members were: Willie Thawl (Clarinet), Alan Crockett (Fiddle), Patsy Montana (Guitar, Vocals), Ken Houchens (Guitar), Bob Long (Guitar), Rusty Gill (Guitar), George Barnes (Guitar), Wade Ray (Fiddle), and Wally Moore (Fiddle).

1949
Tom Waits, Vocals
b. Pomona, CA, USA.
Biography
In the 1970s, Tom Waits combined a lyrical focus on desperate, lowlife characters with a persona that seemed to embody the same lifestyle, which he sang about in a raspy, gravelly voice. From the '80s on, his work became increasingly theatrical as he moved into acting and composing. Growing up in southern California, Waits attracted the attention of manager Herb Cohen, who also handled Frank Zappa, and was signed by him at the beginning of the 1970s, resulting in the material later released as The Early Years and The Early Years, Vol. 2. His formal recording debut came with Closing Time (1973) on Asylum Records, an album that contained "Ol' 55," which was covered by labelmates the Eagles for their On the Border album. Waits attracted critical acclaim and a cult audience for his subsequent albums, The Heart of Saturday Night (1974), the two-LP live set Nighthawks at the Diner (1975), Small Change (1976), Foreign Affairs (1977), Blue Valentine (1978), and Heart Attack and Vine (1980). His music and persona proved highly cinematic, and, starting in 1978, he launched parallel careers as an actor and as a composer of movie music. He wrote songs for and appeared in Paradise Alley (1978), wrote the title song for On the Nickel (1980), and was hired by director Francis Coppola to write the music for One from the Heart (1982), which earned him an Academy Award nomination. While working on that project, Waits met and married playwright Kathleen Brennan, with whom he later collaborated.

Moving to Island Records, Waits made Swordfishtrombones (1983), which found him experimenting with horns and percussion and using unusual recording techniques. The same year, he appeared in Coppola's Rumble Fish and The Outsiders, and, in 1984, he appeared in the director's The Cotton Club. In 1985, he released Rain Dogs. In 1986, he appeared in Down By Law and made his theatrical debut with Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre in Frank's Wild Years, a musical play he had written with Brennan. An album based on the play was released in 1987, the same year Waits appeared in the films Candy Mountain and Ironweed. In 1988, he released a film and soundtrack album depicting one of his concerts, Big Time. In 1989, he appeared in the films Bearskin: An Urban Fairytale, Cold Feet, and Wait Until Spring. His work for the theater continued in 1990 when Waits partnered with opera director Robert Wilson and beat novelist William Burroughs and staged The Black Rider in Hamburg, Germany. In 1991, he appeared in the films Queens' Logic, The Fisher King, and At Play in the Fields of the Lord. In 1992, he scored the film Night on Earth; released the album Bone Machine, which won a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album; appeared in the film Bram Stoker's Dracula; and returned to Hamburg for the staging of his second collaboration with Robert Wilson, Alice. The The Black Rider was documented on CD in 1993, the same year Waits appeared in the film Short Cuts.

A long absence from recording resulted in the 1998 release of Beautiful Maladies, a retrospective of his work for Island. In 1999, Waits finally returned with a new album, Mule Variations. The record was a critical success, winning a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk album, and was also his first for the independent Epitaph Records' Anti subsidiary. A small tour followed, but Waits jumped right back into the studio and began working on not one but two new albums. By the time he emerged in the spring of 2002, both Alice and Blood Money were released on Anti Records. Blood Money consisted of the songs from the third Wilson/Waits collaboration that was staged in Denmark in 2000 and won Best Drama of the year. After limited touring in support of these two endeavors, Waits returned to the recording studio and issued Real Gone in 2004. The album marked a large departure for him, in that it contained no keyboards at all, focusing only on rhythm-stringed instruments. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
BIO:
www.answers.com/topic/tom-waits

1903
Roosevelt Thomas Williams
(barrelhouse) pianist
b. Bastrop, TX, USA.
(aka: "Grey Ghost")
Active from the 1920s on, but known to very few people outside of his home town of Austin, TX. Over his 75 year music career, Williams supported himself at various times by laboring in the cotton fields and cotton gins, bootlegging, gambling, working as a chauffeur, and driving an Austin school bus. However, when the Catfish label re-issued some of his 1965 field recordings, as an LP record labeled 'Grey Ghost', even the poor quality of the recording didn't deter folks from appreciating his talent, and his fame finally spread beyond Austin. He was heard on a "Bluestage" show for National Public Radio as late as 1994, when he was then age 91.
MORE:
www.austinchronicle.com/issues...st.html
MORE:
www.digitaljournalist.org/issue...0.html

1941 Valerie "Val" Wilmer
Writer/Photographer
b. Harrogate, England
Biography
A notable jazz photographer, Valerie Wilmer was one of the key jazz writers of the 1960s who embraced and wrote intelligently about avant-garde and free jazz. She started as a jazz journalist around 1960 and has since written for such magazines as Melody Maker, Down Beat, Jazz Journal, Swing Journal and Jazz Forum, among many others. Her books include Jazz People, The Face of Black Music, As Serious As Your Life, and her memoir Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This. ~ Scott Yanow, All
MORE:
www.jazzscript.co.uk/books/j...lmer.htm


Notable Events
on this date include:

1972.
W.C. Handy Jr.
died in New York City.
Age 68. : (

1977.
Peter Goldmark, Electronic Enginner and father of the LP record, died in New York, NY, USA. Age: 71

1981.
"Little" Willie Brown, harmonica
died in East St. Louis, IL, USA.
Age: 59.
Worked with Charley Patton; Son House, and others.

1982.
"Lovin'" Sam Theard, singer-songwriter
died in Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Age: 78


Songs Recorded/Released
on this date include:

1920 “Rose”
(Arthur Sizemore / Frank Magine / Paul Biese)
- Paul Biese Trio
LISTEN:
www.redhotjazz.com/Songs/biese/rose.ram

1920 “Timbuctoo”
(Kalmar / Ruby)
- Paul Biese Trio
LISTEN:
www.redhotjazz.com/Songs/bi...uctoo.ram

1922 “St. Louis Blues”
(W.C. Handy)
- Ted Lewis and his Band
LISTEN:
www.redhotjazz.com/songs/le...blues.ram

1923 “A Smile Will Go A Long Long Way”
(Silver / Woods)
- Bailey's Lucky Seven
LISTEN:
www.redhotjazz.com/Songs/lu...ngway.ram

1923 “You'r In Kentucky(Sure As Your' Born)”,
(Little / Shay / Gillespie) - Bailey's Lucky Seven
LISTEN:
www.redhotjazz.com/Songs/lu...ourin.ram

1925 “Whose Who Are You?”
- Nick Lucas
LISTEN:
www.redhotjazz.com/songs/lu...reYou.ram

1927 “Memphis Blues”
(W.C. Handy)
- Ben Pollack and his Orchestra
LISTEN:
www.redhotjazz.com/Songs/po...Blues.ram

1927 “Waitin' For Katie”
(Kahn / Shapiro)
- Ben Pollack and his Orchestra
LISTEN:
www.redhotjazz.com/Songs/po...Katie.ram

1928 “I Can't Make Her Happy”
Vocal refrain by Clare Hanlon
(Pollack / Clare)
- Waring's Pennsylvanians
LISTEN:
www.redhotjazz.com/Songs/wa...happy.ram

1928 “Lets Do It (Lets Fall In Love)”
(from "Paris")
(Cole Porter)
- Lee Morse and her Bluegrass Boys
LISTEN:
www.redhotjazz.com/songs/mo...sdoit.ram

1928 “Susianna”
(Spencer Williams)
- Lee Morse and her Bluegrass Boys
LISTEN:
www.redhotjazz.com/songs/mo...ianna.ram

1928 “Me And The Man In The Moon”
Vocal refrain by Arthur Jarrett
(James Monaco / Edgar Leslie)
- Ted Weems and his Orchestra
LISTEN:www.redhotjazz.com/Songs/we...heman.ram

1928 “My Troubles Are Over”
Vocal refrain by Parker Gibbs
(James Monaco / Edgar Leslie)
- Ted Weems and his Orchestra
LISTEN:
www.redhotjazz.com/Songs/we...eover.ram

1929 “Talk Of The Town
(Cohn / Kahn)
- Ted Weems and his Orchestra
LISTEN:
www.redhotjazz.com/Songs/we...etown.ram

1938 “I'll Dance At Your Wedding”
(Joe Davis)
- Fats Waller and his Rhythm
LISTEN:
www.redhotjazz.com/songs/wa...g1938.ram

1944 Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall , - Ella Fitzgerald
1959 Way Down Yonder In New Orleans , - Freddy Cannon
1959 Why , - Frankie Avalon
1959 Among My Souvenirs , - Connie Francis
1963 Nitty Gritty, The , - Shirley Ellis
1963 Quicksand , - Martha and The Vandellas

LYRICS:

St. Louis Blues
by W.C. Handy

I hate to see the ev'nin' sun go down
Hate to see the ev'nin' sun go down,
'cause my baby, he done left this town

Feelin' tomorrow like I feel today
Feel tomorrow like I feel today,
I'll pack my trunk, make my getaway

St. Louis woman with her diamond rings
Pulls that man 'round by her apron strings,
't'want for powder and for store-bought hair

The man I love, would not gone nowhere,
got the St. Louis blues just as blue as I can be
That man got a heart like a rock cast in the sea,
or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me

Been to the gypsy to get my fortune told
To the gypsy, to get my fortune told,
'cause I'm most wild about my jelly roll

Gypsy done told me, "Don't you wear no black"
Yes, she done told me, "Don't you wear no black,
go to St. Louis, you can win him back"

Help me to Cairo, make St. Louis by myself
Gone to Cairo, find my old friend Jeff
Goin' to pin myself close to his side,
if I flag his train , I sure can ride

I love that man like a schoolboy loves his pie
Like a Kentucky Colonel loves his mint and rye 1
I'll love my baby till the day I die

You ought to see that stovepipe brown of mine,
like he owns the diamond Joseph line
He'd make across-eyed old man go stone blind

Blacker than midnight, teeth like flags of truce
Blackest man in the whole St. Louis
Blacker the berry, sweeter is the juice

About a crap game, he knows a powerful lot,
but when work time comes, he's on the dot
Goin' to ask him for a cold ten spot,
what it takes to get it, he's certainly got

A black-headed gal make a freight train jump the track
Said a black-headed gal make a freight train jump the track
But a redheaded woman makes a preacher ball the jack